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Rejuvenation Reconsiders Retail

More than a decade after opening its first store, Portland, OR-based Rejuvenation is finally opening its second. And the cataloger of period lighting fixtures and hardware is considering opening a third shop as soon as next year.

Scheduled to have opened on April 23, Rejuvenation’s new store will occupy 6,000 sq. ft. in Seattle. President/CEO Mary Roberts says she hopes that the company will be able to open a store a year going forward. To that end, Rejuvenation in January hired former Nike retail executive Jarvis Brecker as its retail director; he began working for the cataloger as a consultant this past September.

The $30 million Rejuvenation chose to locate the Seattle store in what Roberts describes as a “rundown area” that has a number of homes between 50 and 120 years old. The catalog does well in urban areas with large concentrations of homes built between 1880 and 1950, Roberts says.

As for subsequent store locations, Roberts says that many Rejuvenation employees are trained at finding homes that lend themselves to the kind of renovations for which the company’s products are ideally suited. Neighborhoods with older buildings that require renovation are areas in which Rejuvenation will seek to open stores — enabling the company to avoid malls in the bargain.

The flagship Portland store, by way of example, is a 38,000-sq.-ft. landmark of sorts that “people come across the country to see,” Roberts says, much as they do the flagship stores of catalogers such as L.L. Bean and Cabela’s.

At press time, Rejuvenation expected to open its Seattle store in a gala weekend that was to include representatives from Historic Seattle, a local architectural preservation group, on hand to discuss upcoming lectures, events, and membership. Rejuvenation was planning to offer free Historic Seattle memberships to customers who spend $150 or more at the store between April 23 and May 7.